BP's and other pets?

Hello all!

This morning when I took my BP out of her enclosure to clean out her cage (from those ant infestations), I was holding her in my hands and trying to clean out her cage from the ants at the same time... I was also in a hurry because I was trying to get to school on time and etcetera etcetera. Morning rush! Well, while I was holding her while standing, my dog, Cory saw her in my hands and came bouncing up toward us (he's a small thing. size of a small beagle). Medusa immediately reared her head back and started hissing. This is the first time I've ever heard her hiss! I assume that she was surprised by my bouncing furry four legged friend coming towards us so quickly? I mean, they never got near each other, but she also struck her head out towards his direction.

My question is.. do any of you guys have ball pythons that have become accustomed to your other pets? Do they ever become friends? Sorry if that sounds silly! Just wondering... thanks!

All of my snakes seem to love my pet rats to death! I guess that just don't know their own strength. :P

Seriously, though, most snakes aren't social creatures. Those that are will only do so for mating or climate reasons, not for companionship.

I don't think they are capable of any kind of inter-species friendship. We kennel our puppy whenever we have the snakes out and she's strictly off limits in the BP room. I'm pretty sure they snakes would only perceive her as a possible predator and she could quickly turn and nip one and I'd likely not be fast enough to stop it.

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Originally Posted by xdeus

All of my snakes seem to love my pet rats to death! I guess that just don't know their own strength. :P

Seriously, though, most snakes aren't social creatures. Those that are will only do so for mating or climate reasons, not for companionship.

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Yea i have that same relationship between my snakes and the rats lol.Everytime i bring any snake upstairs our staff/pitbull male could care less,now our female pit has to come up and give them her love.The majority of our snakes seem to just let her do it and be gone.The only snake that ever snapped at our dogs was a small baby boa.The male staff/pit strolled up to check the snake out and before i knew what was happening the boa hit our dog in the nose.Zeus just jumped back and gave me the most funny look i have ever seen a dog do ever lol.I think it just depends on the snakes attitude in general how much they will tolerate other pets.

A dog is a carnivore, a predator... much like a cat or any species of african dog, it will be looked at as such by a ball python and pretty much any other snake.

Interaction between the 2 can just end up with a sad post!

I try to keep them all apart - our dog is an old Jap Spitz and he and the BP are aware of each other and he'll always come up and sniff her then go away again - it doesn't worry her but I don't let them interact in case something happened.

I was sitting out in the garden the other day with my parrot in his cage next to me, decided to get my boa out for some fresh air and she was very interested in the parrot ;)

As for my Sav - he's interested in anything that moves that's smaller than him ... :D

My 2 female cats are really blah...nothing bothers them whatsoever. When I first got Spoon, he'd slither all over my bed, right over my 2 sleeping balls of fur. He didn't seem to even notice the furry roadblocks in his path, he just went right over them. Both of them would open an eye, watch him for 2 seconds, then go back to sleep, completely unfazed by his existence. A few times he found his way between them and actually layed there for a bit, absorbing their warmth. However, I never left them alone together at any point...the interactions always happened when I was on the bed with him and he left my hands/lap to explore. If I had to get up for any reason, he was put back in his enclosure. But now that we have 2 male cats that are a bit more on the playful side and seem to think snakes are giant moving strings...none of the cats are allowed in the snake room or near them when they are out.

Our kitty is 18 years old, and doesn't really care what other critters we bring in anymore so long as it's not a cat or a dog and stays out of her way, lol. She gets mildly curious about the snakes, and we're careful not to let either get too close, but no real worries there.

The rabbits appear completely oblivious to the snakes, except for the one time I was doing stuff with Neptune's cage and he let out one of those fire hose hisses at me. The rabbits bolted into their cage, scared em good! Smart bunnies! Ma-tsu *loves* to watch them though. Again, we're always careful just in case!

Gomez couldn't care less about the rabbits or the kitty. He's *fascinated* by our cockatiel though. And she's half fascinated half terrified of him. Poor Zell... chased by bunnies and ball pythons... the only one that doesn't want to mess with her is the cat!

Our cat isn't allowed in the herp room aka the office. She like to see what that is moving in that tank.

Yah, no go with the social interaction. We usually sequester our cats into the bedroom when take either of the girls out (or at least make sure they are zonked out somewhere and have no intention of wandering around the snakes).

The other thing I would suggest is to grab a small plastic tub (shoe box size if your snake is still young), burn some holes in it and voila! temporary holding tub. I usually put a bit of shaved aspen in my holding tub and then put the tub somewhere quiet and mostly dark or shaded while cleaning the cage.

When transporting a snake to the vet, I put the snakey in an inside-out pillowcase, pillowcase goes in holding tub (the pillowcase being a) soft and b) prohibits the snake from seeing what's going on, keeping them a bit calmer).